‘Washington Post’ conflates anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism

The Washington Post has run an interesting (and perhaps important) piece on the alleged rise of anti-Semitism in France: “A ‘new anti-Semitism’ rising in France.” Perhaps some of what is reported is very real (I assume much of it is; the New York Times ran a similar piece the same day). If so, this has implications for the larger discussion of “where can Jews be safe,” which was the original raison d’être for a Jewish homeland/stand. Can Jews be safe in France? The U.S.? Israel/Palestine? What can Jews do collectively to ensure safety? How is Israel creating safety for Jews, or undermining safety?

However, at least some of what’s in the WaPo report is misleading bordering on mendacious. I specifically refer to the video they run of French comic Dieudonne M’Bala M’Bala. He is the anti-semitic poster child of their story, and while I haven’t done any research on his career and stand-up material, I’ll assume the WaPo is right that some of his material is, in fact, anti-Semitic (anti-Jewish).

But the video the Post features of his Palestine stand-up routine (above), which is captioned–

Mbala’s shows have been banned by French authorities for inciting hate. This video, called “Palestine” is from the show “Sandrine” in 2009.

–absolutely is NOT anti-Semitic. Rather, it’s purely anti-Zionist. It’s a heart-wrenching, depressing, raw, and honest account of an archetypal Palestinian who gave up on freedom, equality, and liberation during the Second Intifada and became a suicide bomber. While suicide bombing is deplorable and unforgivable, there is nothing in M’Bala’s routine that portrays negative sentiments against Jews. In contrast, the routine focuses on the impact of Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestine, killing of Palestinian civilians, and so forth.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak famously said “If I were a Palestinian of the right age, I would join, at some point, one of the terrorist groups.” [Link]Barak’s statement, as well as M’Bala’s in the video, is recognition that Israel’s oppressive policies are the provocative cause of these desperate, deplorable, counter-productive activities. When Barak puts himself in the shoes of Palestinians, he feels empathy for their yearning for liberation and equality. But the WaPo would have you believe that when much the same sentiment is uttered by M’Bala, it’s anti-Semitic. No, it’s anti-Zionist. As usual, the WaPo’s reporting is biased and racist. The WaPo also might consider Sabeel’s considered analysis of suicide bombing: [Link]

One of the big problems we have is the MSM conflating real anti-semitism with criticism of Israel. That’s been around forever. I see a lot of stories that aren’t worth critiquing, because there are so many. But I think this one is worth examining, for the sake of sifting out the real wolves from the cries of wolf, in a very large, front-page headline claiming the wolves are out for the Jews.

Returning to the question of what makes Jews safe, the hard fact is that Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians is the number one source of Jewish unsafety in the world. By far. If the WaPo had reported this, it would have done us a service. If Israel were to become an equal-rights state, a state of all its citizens from the river to the sea, Jewish safety in the Middle East and around the world would dramatically increase. The WaPo will be the last to report on this fact, many years after Apartheid Israel falls. The headline will be something like “Shockingly, Jews Are Safer Without a Militarily Enforced Jewish Majority State.”

As for the difference between genuine anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, Jewish Voice for Peace long ago published this important pamphlet, Reframing Anti-Semitism: [Link]

UPDATE: A brief search of M’Bala’s work indicates he is a Holocaust denier/minimizer, with a track record of anti-Jewish sentiment in his material. But this underlines my point: the WaPo’s reporting should have focused entirely on actual examples of anti-Semitism, as opposed to lumping in a video that contains only anti-Zionism.

It seems the ‘anti-Semitic’ charges surround his lampooning of the Holocaust’s sacredness in contemporary culture and the special considerations given to real Jewish suffering but at the cost of relative omission of other people’s suffering, e.g. the African slave trade, a grotesque crime in human history that lasted hundreds of years, but without a single African holocaust museum.

But it seems his real offense is his identification of the french establishment with a foreign cultural minority and Zionism, and his work to unite native french and immigrants against the same establishment. This offensive message could resonate in the USA, where the cost of elite zionism to majority Americans is much higher– trillions in defense security transfer payments to owners and individuals inside the military industrial parasitic incubus.

This speech has costs: punitive fines, the right to employment, and possible incarceration.

“Perhaps some of what is reported is very real (I assume much of it is; the New York Times ran a similar piece the same day)”

Sorry, but using the New York Times as some sort of bench mark for the truth is getting to be a real nonstarter, especially as concerns anything to do with Israel or anti-semitism. Since the Times has proven itself to be nothing more than a propaganda rag for Zionism, it would seem more appropriate to assume that the information is exaggerated or slanted to be pro-Zionist than to assume that “much of it is” real. And how “coincidental” is it that similar articles would run in the Washington Post and the Times on the same day? Can you say Zionist lobby manipulation of these very willing propaganda outlets?

@ joemowrey
Yes, seems Mr. Taylor has drank the zionist koolaid. Why would any intelligent person with mental integrity go along with the NYT on anything Israel given its track record on the subject? Perhaps Mr.Taylor will tell us? I know it’s a no-no here, but Atzmon has a lot to say about the French comedian. Further, Mr. Ellis has decided Atzmon is a Jewish prophet for the contemporary scene, in case nobody noticed.

Is Zionism more colonialism, or is it more ethnic cleansing and apartheid? Does anyone here think that Zionism’s main agenda is to exploit the Palestinians and their natural resources, or to get rid of the Palestinians on all land Israel wants to keep and get?

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Israel will either mend its ways, or it is doomed.

and from Einstein:

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Will Israel be capable of changing in order to save itself??? Israel boasts of so many talented intellectuals and super scientists. It seems that when it comes to Zionism, they get the Oldman treatment.

“…….Fear is, after all, its own best engine. Fear makes us hesitate to take the very actions that can address our fears. Fear lulls and fools us into believing that things are so fragile and darkly hazardous that any step forward that we take to address them is a step into cataclysm and abyss.

Fear teaches us that No is a word of might and clarity and self-esteem and stature, while Yes is a word of vulnerability and uncertainty and deference and submission.

How do you fight fear? How do you deal with the monster hidden and lurking out of view under the bed, the shadow behind the closet door?

Maybe, for us, the first step is to open our eyes. Let there be sight. For our part, as Israelis, under our covers on this side of the walls we have built, we’ve only now begun – and not entirely of our own free will, to look at Palestinians, and at ourselves.

Recently, thanks in part to peace activists and a new world of available technology, we have begun to see on the evening news what happens when we send our soldiers, that post-Oslo generation, past the separation barrier and into occupation duty. We have watched as our soldiers – themselves fearful – have opened fire without apparent cause, arrested small children without legitimate cause, killed people without just cause.

We need to see this. We have to find ways to see what we are afraid of. We have to know. We have to know what lack of peace is like. And what it takes to keep it going.

We need to see more of this. Let a hundred cameras blossom. A thousand. Let there be sight.

Yes, we have every reason to be scared. Because all of us, Palestinians and Israelis both, know the extremists in our midst. We are, after all, family. We know with what passion our madmen and women hate that idea of a peace.

After all this, though, two other things are true:

1. If you still believe in the possibility of peace, you are as much a true believer as the fiercest extremist.

2. You fight fear by not being alone. We’re not alone. Incredibly, among Israelis and Palestinians both, there are still many more of us, than there are of them. ”

Didn’t one of their leaders (supposedly) say they want to rid the Galilee of Arabs? I think they do want to ethnically cleanse them, and somehow make life so unbearable, they may leave or perish. THEN they will take all their resources (at least the ones they have not been able to steal so far). This is the result of Western nations (who did not want these refugees themselves), dumping homeless and unwanted Europeans among indigenous Arabs, who were flourishing quite well, before their nightmare started. No one can fault them for resenting the unwanted neighbors, because they have turned out to be very vicious, greedy, and violent.

We who call actions and ideas of Israel, Zionism, Israelis, etc. objectionable/sinful/evil are objecting to just that, actions and ideas. To call that “anti-Semitic” is to say that those actions and ideas we find objectionable/sinful/evil are immutable characteristics of Jews. You don’t get any more anti-Semitic than that.

You’re defending Dieudonne M’Bala M’Bala now? Just another sign that your movement tarred by antisemitism. This is a guy who called CRIF a “mafia” and said they controlled French foreign policy. He has stood shoulder to shoulder with antisemitism French far-rightists. His website published the writing of Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy. He gave an award to another Holocaust denier, Robert Faurisson. There is a lot more.

Dieudonné was cleared of charges by the French court last week. It had been about his claim that Prime Minister Manuel Valls whose wife is Jewish was an Israel firster. But antisemitic mumbo-jumbo aside, the guy is definitely a racist.

Garaudy was not a denier. He accepted that the holocaust happened but he questioned actual numbers and methodology employed. But he was not despised by the Zionists for that, hundreds of other scholars have had the same doubts. It was because he made a lot of noise and wrote books exposing how Israel milked it to get away with having dispossessed the Palestinians of their country and their resources. He died in 2012.

“Dieudonné was cleared of charges by the French court last week.” In one case. He’s been sentenced to fines several times for antisemitic remarks.

Garaudy was a Holocaust denier. He referred to the Holocaust as a myth, and was convicted by a French court for doing so. He claimed that the number Jews killed was not more than 3.5 million. No reputable scholar holds that point of view.

no, that’s not changing the subject. The subject here is Matthew’s article and the fact that the Washington Post is highlighting a clearly anti-Israel and not anti-Jewish video to support its thesis that this person is anti-simitic and is indicative of rising anti-Semitism in Europe. Given the fact that the jurisprudence of the states is to violate people’s right to free speech and free thought but only where it involves the Holocaust, I think that subject is well within the realm of what we are talking about.

I’m afraid he was (despite having expunged references to Faurisson and Rassinier in the second edition of his book) – clearly demonstrated by the French courts and the European Court of Human Rights to which he had submitted an appeal (and lost).

I think it’s a matter of definitions. For me a denier is someone that says it never happened at all. For a Zionist I’m guessing, it’s anyone who even questions one iota of the narrative. You can question the Ten Commandments and get away with it but you can’t question a single thing about the holocaust. I don’t put much value in what Garaudy claims, but I respect his right to question.

This is not really the place for such discussions, but I think the European Court decision rejecting his appeal explains why some of Garaudy’s statements should be considered “denial of crimes against humanity” and “racially defamatory”. You may not agree with all of their reasoning but, on the whole, I think the argument that Garaudy was not merely “questioning the narrative” is quite compelling. Whether such crimes should even be on the books is another story entirely.

Yeah, I get your circular logic game. When we say that there is a good deal of antisemitism in the world, you deny it and tell us we’re paranoid. When antisemitism does rear its ugly head, you say we need and crave it. So there’s no way to win with you. You should examine your assumptions.

>> When we say that there is a good deal of antisemitism in the world, you deny it and tell us we’re paranoid. When antisemitism does rear its ugly head, you say we need and crave it. So there’s no way to win with you.

No doubt anti-Semitism exists in the world, but it doesn’t entitle Jews to an oppressive, colonialist, expansionist and supremacist “Jewish State”. But you Zio-supremacists refuse to halt your acts of injustice and immorality and your ON-GOING (war) crimes, and you defend your actions and your crimes by accusing everyone of anti-Semitism. So there’s no way to win with you.

Actually, it’s perfectly straightforward logic. It’s because the Zionist project needs to portray Jews as perpetual victims in order to distract from and morally justify the continuing real victimization of Palestinians that you engage in paranoid scaremongering about antisemitism (and if you can portray criticism of Israel as “antisemitic”, that’s a double win). The few trickles of genuine antisemitism still in the Western world are invaluable for making sure that the term “antisemitism” doesn’t collapse into complete triviality from overuse against Israel’s critics, while simultaneously allowing you to repeat the Zionist narrative that the Jews will never find a secure footing for themselves anywhere except in their ancient former homeland, now restored to statehood. Zionism needs antisemitism like a fish needs water, plus you have a powerful motive for blowing it out of all proportion on those occasions that you do find it.

Matthew Taylor is right. This featured video of Dieudonne is not antiSemitic, but rather anti Zionist. But the general tone is flip and not serious. We are treated to Taylor’s vision of the future how it will be really safe. (Will Palestine be the only safe place in the region. Will Egypt, Syria and Iraq look like they do today? But Taylor sees the beautiful future, which comes off as very flip.) and even the poster boy phrase regarding Dieudonne exhibits a flip attitude. Anti semitism might have existed once upon a time and historians (maybe, not quite sure) should study that unfortunate history, but it only exists today to satisfy Abe Foxman and the Zionists. Flip, immature, naive and irrelevant to the war of ideas.

What does it matter? They probably used this video because they did not want to promote a video with actual antisemitic views in it. That Matt Taylor can read this article, call the rise of antisemitism in France “alleged,” and make a completely straw man argument about this video, which the Post DOES NOT claim is antisemitic, shows us everything that is wrong with the way he thinks, the naivete of the JVP folk he fraternizes with.

Last year’s previous year’s TAU’s report on anti-Jewish acts showed a world increase of 30% while the increase during the same period in France was of 58%. So yes, you could say that it’s on the rise in France and in fact, it’s where there is the highest incidence of acts against Jews in the world, followed by the US, UK and Canada in that order. It’s also on the rise in Hungary, Greece and even the Ukraine.

I’d say all this is thanks to Israel’s mistreatment of the Palestinians. The report out of TA also showed that it spiked right after the Toulouse murder of the kids and after reports of attacks by Israel on Palestinians.

“I’d say all this is thanks to Israel’s mistreatment of the Palestinians. ”

That’s called blaming the victims. And it’s not close to accurate. Most antisemitic acts in France are committed by poor Muslims France hasn’t been able to integrate properly. You don’t see poor Muslims beating up Jews in the United States.

They probably used this video because they did not want to promote a video with actual antisemitic views in it.

i agree with woody that it has no business being presented by wapo if it is not related to the topic of their article. hops, perhaps you could find us a video of one of Dieudonne’s performances which demonstrates his “actual antisemitic views”.

Why is it, Annie, that you need me to find you a video when we’re talking about a guy who has found common cause with the base personalities like Faurisson and Garaudy? The article itself discusses his act, which belittles the Holocaust and mocks it as a gross exaggeration.

This is pretty bad. Here, Dieudonne mocks a French initiative requiring French 5th graders to learn the story of one of French child victims of the Holocaust. The initiative did not specify that the victims had to be Jewish, by the way. And at the end, he mixes in a reference to Jewish diamond dealers in “Tel Aviv” and “Antwerp” playing a role in “modern slavery” just saw the audience knows who the target is.

You’re out of your mind. “Flip and not serious”??? How about the part where he talked about his father and uncle and brother getting murdered and their house getting burned down. That was “flip and not serious”????

Now why in the world would anyone conflates anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism? Perhaps it is the realization that any old anti-semitic trope can be dusted off so long as one is careful to replace “Jew” with “Zionist”. Amply demonstrated by numerous commentators right here at anti-Zionist Mondoweiss.

Yes, the two concepts are distinct and yes there is plenty of legitimate anti-Zionism, but to pretend there is not a huge overlap is foolishness.

If I may bore you by repetition -by ‘Zionism’ I mean the belief that Jewish people, and they only, have an inherent right (now often called birthright) to a share of sovereignty in the Holy Land; others having a share only by the generosity and grace of the true heirs’. By ‘anti-Zionism’ I mean the Zionist belief is false. By ‘anti-Semitism’ I mean serious prejudice against at least some things Jewish. No one owns words and I’d be happy to use other meanings if anyone likes to frame same.
I think that anti-Z arises from reason, not from prejudice, and is therefore not anti-S, though someone of anti-Z opinion may be judged to be anti-S for other reasons. Someone who is definitely anti-S may quite well be Z, since a prejudice against Jewish presence in our midst is quite compatible with a belief that it’s entirely right that there should be a dominant Jewish presence elsewhere.

I’ld put it different. Zionism is a child of anti-semitism. The ideology of Zionism is from the same ugly rightwing tree of racism as anti-semitism. Zionism can’t exist without anti-semitism. The more real and perceived anti-semitism there is around, the more Zionism fluorishs.

So, the basic strategy of zionism to make it’s position stronger is stoking the flames of anti-semitism. The basic method zionists use for this is doing ugly things and claiming that they do them in the name of judaism, like expressed in the term the “Jewish State” – the “State of Jewish People” and so on. People who buy the lie that zionists act in the name of judaism then fall easy in the trap of affiliating themselves with anti-semitism, meaning anti-jewish racists. The logic is quite simple: if these all these ugly things zionists do are jewish, the people want to be anti-jewish. If that’s the case, Zionists have been successful. When anti-semitism is on the rise, Zionism gets stronger, too, and Zionists can run successful hasbara camapigns for more support for Zionism and Aliyah.

Other justice-minded people, those who understand that Zionism does not represent Judaism, become in the face of ugly Zionist behaviour Anti-Zionists. Zionism reacts to this danger by claiming that Anti-Zionism is Anti-Semitism, using the usual and common method of conflating Judaism with Zionism. So the perception of Anti-Semitism rises for many, and it’s enough as a base for Zionists to run successful hasbara camapigns for more support for Zionism and Aliyah. That’s what we see here in the WaPo.

Of course there exists real native anti-semitism, too, but that makes the trick even more perfect, and builds the basis for Zionism to build on stoking anti-semitism for the sake of strengthening Israel. Sadly, many non-Zionist Jews fall also in the trap of equating Judaism and Zionism, though Jews are the ones suffering most from this mixing up two very different things. That’s the basic method of Zionism, simple as that, and successful, over and over again.

“The ideology of Zionism is from the same ugly rightwing tree of racism as anti-semitism”. Wrong and completely lacking in historical grounding. Anti-Semitism has emanated as much from the left as from the right. “Anti-Semitism — the socialism of fools”. Remember? Read history and you will see that it is far from a solely right-wing illness.

I read history. I had for example a look at what the respected German Rabbi Felix Goldmann (†1934 in Leipzig) said about Zionism in his booklet “Der Zionismus, seine Theorien, Aussichten und Wirkungen“, published anonymously – for fear of retribution by zionists – under the name of “Antizionistisches Komitee Berlin” in the year 1913. Rabbi Felix Goldman laid out in great detail and very convincing that Zionism has always been a racist rithwing movement. Key quote:

Anti-Semitism was primarily – you need not mistake or deny other moments that resonate more or less – religious hatred, and the emancipation of the Jews and their intrusion into economic life also made the economic side of Jew-hatred emerge much stronger. But the anti-Semitism of today is racial hatred! And that means a complete re-evaluation and a huge uptrend. Religious and economic anti-Semitism are more superficial nature, they are the nature and the perception of action, not the person. The racial anti-Semitism, however, is against the human person itself. It turned a forceful opposition, in which both sides seek to convince by arguments , into ​​an anti-Semitism of contempt of inferior Jews and preaches complete separation from him in all areas of culture and social life. With what success is known! If the “racial” moment has acquired a meaning in which nothing counts of everything else, merits, virtues, striving and disposition, if the Jew is outlawed, if you want to depress him into a pariah position, so it is a success, the national belief, the chauvinistic racial madness of our times, has won in diligent work.

And this chauvinist, national racist madness is the theoretical basis, the spiritual soil of Zionism! That’s where it borrowed the specific features of it’s being and it’s effectiveness! Even the utterance of this undeniable and undisputed fact contains the most damning criticism of this pseudo messianic movement. With all clarity the consequences must be imagined of what it must mean for the nature and manifestations of Zionism that it grew up on the same marsh soil as the racial anti-Semitism, this scourge, which we Jews are suffering under so horrible. And it’s always the same water, may it now be called Aryan anti-Semitic, or may it now be colored Jewish-national that comes from the same poisoned wells, and no staining of the world can make it a healthy drink.

If you stand on the position that the national hate speech and racial anti-Semitism is a crime against culture – and who would not – you must also condemn it’s brother in Jewish garb, the national Zionism, because it’s results will be as pernicious as those.

I understand that Zionists tried to purge that booklets from libraries worldwide, but now in the internet age the text is available online. If you can read German, I recommend to read this booklet in full. It’s an eye-opener about what the nature of the Zionist movement has been right from the beginning.

Very true. The father of Zionism, Herzl, didn’t even try to hide it when he declared that the non Jewish population of any territory designated territory to accommodate the Jewish state would have to be driven from the land to cleanse them.

As Hostage had pointed out, Witty, Jabotinsky, Weizmann, Herzl, Ruppin, and Ben Gurion ridiculed ordinary Jews in the Diaspora and used derogatory terms to describe them, like Yid, eunuchs, Orientals, & etc. These were “Zionist people” who claimed they were inventing a “new Jew” and they even attempted to employ eugenics in pursuit of their goals. So it is hardly ludicrous to give them credit for inventing a new people. See for example Etan Blooms dissertation on Arthur Ruppin, the Father of Jewish Settlement in Palestine.http://www.tau.ac.il/tarbut/tezot/bloom/EtanBloom-PhD-ArthurRuppin.pdf

Thanks, RoHa. Bando, I think that you and I are on about slightly different subjects. I was trying to say what I mean by certain fraught words, you were explaining how people to whom these words apply have in fact reacted to or against each other. I was talking about words, you about reality.

And they wonder why acts against Jews in France are on the rise; an article picked up by EI from the French press 2 months back about the IDF holding recruitment sessions in a Paris synagogue. Jews of Paris complained to the authorities who appear to have had the recruitment sign taken down:

Israeli army planned to use Paris synagogue as recruitment site
Submitted by Ali Abunimah on Mon, 05/26/2014 – 23:36

French Jews have condemned the Israeli army for its plan to use the Paris Grand Synagogue as a recruitment site.

“The alliance of the kippah [the ritual Jewish skull cap] and the Uzi rifle is being organized in the center of Paris. Thus the religious Jewish community finds itself invaded and taken hostage in one of its most prestigious sites,” the Union of French Jews for Peace (UFJP), said in a 24 May statement.

UFJP, a group frequently critical of Israel’s abuse of Palestinians, was responding to an Israeli embassy announcement that a representative of the Israeli army would visit the synagogue to meet potential recruits.

The Israeli embassy in Paris appears to have deleted the notice, but verifiable traces of it remain on the Internet including an image cached by Google and a screenshot tweeted by the French academic Julien Salingue.

Walid, do you really believe that the contents of the article cause an increase in attacks against Jews in France? If so, what do you think about the people who attacked Jews because of the events portrayed in the article? Why would one make excuses for violence?

Speedy, I don’t know to which article you were referring to but it was reported that the attacks in France spiked right after the terrorist shooting of the Jewish kids in Toulouse. It had something to do with some people sympathizing with Merrah the French-Algerian shooter. The alleged Brussels Museum shooter is also French-Algerian although this shooting appeared to be a deliberate political assassination more than simply a hate crime.

I did not mention the Jewish vigilante groups of youths roaming the streets at night supposedly looking out for Jews but actually looking for Arabs to beat up. These vigilantes have received Israeli martial arts training. This too doesn’t help with French anti-Jewish feelings. CRIFF is just as active in France as AIPAC is active in the US and the French are having their fill of its incessant holocaust-related stories. The latest holocaust related news is the pressure being put on the French by American Congressmen in seeking reparations from the Société Nationale des Chemins de fer Français, the national railway, because it had transported Jews to the camps (and their death) albeit under Nazi orders to do so. They are threatening to cancel existing management contract the SNCF has with Amtrak and to bump it off the bidding for the proposed TGV lines in Florida and California.

All these things are not helping the Jews in France, in addition of course of the Palestine situation.

It is getting ugly for Jews in France; from 2 days ago in Arutz Sheva:

Anti-Semitic Assault and Stabbing in Paris Library

20 assailants beat up Jewish students and stab them in French capital as anti-Semitism continues to peak.

By Chaim Lev, Ari Yashar
First Publish: 6/24/2014, 6:36 PM

The wave of anti-Semitic violence continues to rock French Jewry, as a gang of 20 attackers on Monday reportedly assaulted visibly Jewish students wearing kippot (yarmulkes) at a local library in the capital city of Paris.

The assailants, described by reports as being of North African descent and therefore likely Muslim immigrants, approached the Jewish students from two directions in the library, pouncing on them and beating them until they were bloody.

The Jewish students ran from the scene, and in the process two students were stabbed, leaving them with light wounds.

Security personnel at the library got involved and called up the police, who were able to arrest several of the attackers and bring them in for investigation.

The attack comes after a rally in Paris supporting the three Israel teens who were kidnapped by Hamas terrorists two weeks ago came under attack last Thursday. The anti-Semitic attackers hurled flares at the rally, scattering the participants; several of the attackers were arrested.

The recent attacks are just the latest in a long string of escalating anti-Semitic violence.

Two Saturdays ago, attackers reportedly approached a Paris synagogue in the city’s 20th District armed with an AK-47 assault rifle and a handgun.

According to reports they began aiming their guns at bystanders and the building itself and pretended to open fire, but fled the scene when they saw armed French police officers guarding the synagogue. Reports say they escaped on a scooter.

The Saturday prior to that, two visibly Jewish teenagers wearing kippot report being sprayed with tear gas in Sarcelles, a northern suburb of Paris, by North African assailants. A week before that, two other Jewish teenagers, aged 14 and 15, narrowly escaped an axe-wielding man of Arab appearance in another Paris suburb.

Jewish Agency Executive Director Natan Sharansky spoke to Arutz Sheva on Monday about French aliyah (immigration to Israel), discussing the many factors driving the steep rise in aliyah recently, including the wave of anti-Semitic violence.

That rise in aliyah is such that a full 1% of the French Jewish community is expected to move to Israel by the end of 2014.

All these sad stories about anti-semitism in France but the silver lining is NOW WITH ADDED ALIYAH.

I still remember a surreal interview with a family of recent immigrants from France, broadcast on Israeli TV during Cast Lead. The interview was conducted in a café in Sderot during the cease fire hours, between rocket attacks. The family had just emerged from a bomb shelter and their son had enlisted and was actually in Gaza. They couldn’t stop talking about how much safer it was for them than Paris!

Shmuel, in general, the half-million French Jews are very happy to be living in France and are getting along very well with the 6 or 7 million Muslims. Of all racist attacks in France, only 40% are aimed at Jews, but Zionists that are forever trying to draw people to Israel would have everyone believe that Jews and none other but the Jews are targeted, in short a mini-holocaust in the making. As to the numbers of those immigrating to Israel estimated at 1%, this 4000 or 5000 isn’t going to turn it around for Israel; in 2012 World Bank estimates put Israel’s net migration at -76,000. The same year France was at +650,000, while Lebanon was at -500,000.

From NYT June 20th:

… Serge Cwajgenbaum, a Frenchman who is secretary general of the European Jewish Congress in Brussels, emphasized that a majority of France’s Jews were remaining in France and constituted a well-integrated community. He said relations between Jews and the country’s roughly six million Muslims were by and large peaceful.

However, he added, shifting political winds were heightening the anxieties of European Jewry. “French anxiety represents the general anxiety of Jews in Europe, who fear for their safety and future,” he said. “If the situation continues, there will be an accelerated movement out of Europe.”

Last year, 3,288 French Jews emigrated to Israel — a 72 percent increase over 2012. For the first time since 1948, the year Israel was founded, French émigrés surpassed the number of American émigrés. This year, the Jewish Agency says it expects some 5,000 to make aliyah, the Hebrew word for immigration that means “to ascend.” The agency said that while immigration to Israel was stagnating globally, French Jews were the notable exception.

You have a point, eGuard, Matthew could look into the shoananas video that’s a play on an old Annie Cordy Caribbean animal song “chaud cacao” or “hot cocoa”. Dieudonné sang what sounded like “chaud ananas” or “hot pineapples” which sounded exactly as “shoa-nanas”. Nanas in French are “hot chicks” so it gives you an idea where this song was going.

There’s no problem with Dieudonné mocking Israel because of what it’s doing to Palestinians, but bringing in the shoa is going overboard and in poor taste.

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